Level of Responsibility of the Transporter for Death and Body Injuries

The question of adequacy in compensation of the passenger and his/her family that is the questions of more sever or more delicate responsibility of the transporter is one of the important questions in the area of transportation law. When we talk about the responsibility of the transporter for death and body injury of the passenger, we talk about the rights of the passengers or his/her relatives on the compensation of the tangible and non tangible damage. The lost life and damaged health are financially irrecoverable, but yet the responsibility of the transporter for death and body injuries of the passengers offers legal protection to the passengers and therefore shows its real meaning. The tendency in transportation law is strengthening the legal position of the passenger, as economically inferior side in transportation contract. The legislative and jurisprudence conduct this process in more directions: with the increase of the lower level of responsibility of the transporter for reimbursement due to the injury, or the death of the passenger, increase the number of legal frameworks according to those the injured passenger or the heirs of the perished passengers can claim the reimbursement, with the limitation of the cases of liberation or derogation of the transporter responsibility, where the burden of justification of those circumstances lies always on them, prescribing the obligation of the transporter to be insured for the cases of incidents on minimal defined amounts, standardization of the transporter’s obligation to insure on the minimal proscribed amounts for the case of harmful event, standardization of the obligatory advance fee for the damage caused by the transporter to the injured passenger, or to the heirs that benefit after death passenger unless the request overpasses proscribed amount. Nevertheless, this process should not go towards threatening economic strength and the existence of the transporter himself. We should bare in mind that transportation organizations and transporters themselves are different in size, economical strength, so for one transporter reimbursement of the damage would be very heavy burden, while for the other this amount would be meaningless cost. That is why the need exists to find realistic proportion that could satisfy both signatories. We consider that the jurisprudence of USA, that does not proscribe the upper limit of the responsibility for the damages caused to the passenger in air transportation, where the courts adjudge indemnity claims in millions in national currency, should not be template and example for uniform regulation of this matter in comparative law. European Union transportation law correlates with European transportation and develops as its superstructure. Transportation law of European Union consists of legislative and institutes that impact more and more on the function and development of the European transportation, preparation of the legislative in order to increase the safety of the transportation, better protection of the passengers and their rights, strengthening of free market, standardization of the regulation considering the responsibility of the transporter in all kinds of transportation and legal superstructure of the combined transportation that is more and more present in the integrated Europe. European transportation law will be developed together with the harmonization process, so it is realistic to expect asking questions on the adequacy of numerous international conventions that are now standing as well as the questions of their revision. Countries that are not the members of European Union, if they want to perform transportation on European market would be obliged to obey European communitarian transportation law due to the practical reasons or under the pressing of economical necessity that impose European Union as economically stronger party. Therefore, legislative on the responsibility of the transporter for the damage due to the death or body injuries of the passengers must be adapted to the needs of European cooperation and harmonization process with European transportation law. This process of coherence with must be developed fast and especially due to the attractiveness and advantages of the membership status in European Union. Having in mind the harmonization process of our legislative with EU legislative, we could expect this as well in the area of transportation law, especially in the area of the responsibility of the transporter for death and body injuries of the passengers and “aggravation” of the domestic legislative.